DnD addresses racism.

CriticalGaming

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I mean, I've been hearing "always evil races are lazy and dumb"/"what are you, liberal?" since I started playing RPGs 20 years ago, from ye ol' grognards who occasionally sat at the same table as Gygax (or so they claim)
It should've been changed 20 years ago because "is it evil for a Paladin to shank an orc baby and would they lose their special Good Guy powers for doing so" is a stupid ass argument to see play out in real life.
Remember when people wanted D&D cancelled because they thought it was devil worship? It's kind of the same thing, people project their ideas upon something in order to demonize it.

This is a fantasy game, and orcs and dark elves are just the atypical bad guys so the game gives them the baseline foundations to be that. There are play groups in which the players are the evil force in the world. That's why they made "evil" races playable. Again it's just basic lore to give people jumping off points.

I don't think anyone who plays D&D, or is familiar with the game from something like Critical Role, has ever looked at it and thought it was racist or satanic. These types of claims always come from groups from the outside looking in.

Shouldn't context mean something? Intention? Even if the Orcs are written in a way that you could stretch it out to equal a real life allegory, do people really think Wizards wrote it to be diliberately racist? Especially since that company is shown how quick they are to as inclusive as possible to special communities.

And more to your original point here, yes the original D&D lore wasn't written well and things have certainly changed and evolved over the years. However the writing of this lore can only get to a certain point, because once you over detail it you remove player agency for using that lore as a backbone to make it their own. That's kind of the point of it, be generic inspiration so that dungeon masters can craft it to fit whatever style of game they are playing.

It's getting out of hand honestly.

As Anita Sarkesian said, "Everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic...." And she has taught a whole movement of people that, yeah, if you want to you can find an offense in anything and everything. These people have found ways to gain fame, headlines, and also destroy careers, products, and hobbies, of people and things they don't like.

I don't believe any company, or person, should bow the knee to these groups because they are their own hate group. A hate group that gets results because they appear to have some moral high ground, which frankly there is nothing moral about it.

We have freedoms in the modern world, and one of those is the right to say anything you want. Even if it's ugly. If DnD books wrote Orcs as a direct corrilation to a real life race of people, then that's the right of the company. And if you don't agree or think it is poor taste, you can not support it. The same goes for video games and movies and whatever else.

Remember the outrage when a cake shop refused to make a cake for a gay wedding? The store got news coverage and the media portrayed them as evil bigots, when it was just a couple of people who didn't agree with gay marriage because of their religion. They have a right to refuse service to people, all businesses do. But that gay couple got media attention for causing outrage and another cake shop offered to make their wedding cake for fucking free. Hmmmm.......now doesn't that make you think a little? Wedding cakes are expensive. This cake shop doesn't want to make a cake because we're gay, let's report them for sympathy points and maybe we can profit on the outrage. Ding free cake. That saves like $500 from the wedding cost.

Ultimately that's the question I ask myself when it comes to this stuff. Are they getting something out of being outraged? Or are they just trying to flex some kind of influence over something that isn't a big deal?
 

Thaluikhain

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I don't think anyone who plays D&D, or is familiar with the game from something like Critical Role, has ever looked at it and thought it was racist or satanic.
Are people saying that D&D is racist, though? There are any number of people (including players) saying that this or that particular element of D&D is racist. Normally they'd go onto say that that particular element should be handled differently (or removed), not that D&D as a whole is racist.

OTOH, Jack Chick and Patricia Pulling aren't fictional characters, so I can see someone legit arguing that rolling 3d6 for Str makes you inherently racist or something because their kid committed suicide and they want to make money out of it.
 

CriticalGaming

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Normally they'd go onto say that that particular element should be handled differently (or removed
That's the beauty of D&D thought isn't it. If you don't like a story element or aspect of what's presented, then you have the freedom to change it. It's just that the offense or cringe towards any particular part is so subjective, that I don't feel it warrants a change and mass reprinting of books to reflect someone's minor grievance.

I've yet to see any specific example that is blatantly racist or otherwise offensive. Maybe I just missed it, but I've not seen any of it in my D&D circles or on the net myself. So if you have a specific example, send me a link and I'd be willing to look it over.
 

Buyetyen

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That's the beauty of D&D thought isn't it. If you don't like a story element or aspect of what's presented, then you have the freedom to change it. It's just that the offense or cringe towards any particular part is so subjective, that I don't feel it warrants a change and mass reprinting of books to reflect someone's minor grievance.
"This is the way we've always done it," is a shitty reason to do anything.
 

CriticalGaming

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"This is the way we've always done it," is a shitty reason to do anything.
That is a meaningless statement. It has nothing to do with "how they've always done it". This is an issue of subjective opinions towards a creative work. If you find Nazi's offensive then do you have a reasonable claim to have every WW2 featuring Nazi's removed? If you hate the use of the N-word, should they remake Django Unchained just to fit your personal tastes?


The world doesn't work that way, it can't. Being offended by something is so personal that you can't possible curate against it. Thus my point of using the Anita Sarkesian quote above. You can find anything and everything offensive if you want too, that doesn't mean that creative work, or public policy should change to cater to you.
 
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Buyetyen

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That is a meaningless statement. It has nothing to do with "how they've always done it". This is an issue of subjective opinions towards a creative work. If you find Nazi's offensive then do you have a reasonable claim to have every WW2 featuring Nazi's removed? If you hate the use of the N-word, should they remake Django Unchained just to fit your personal tastes?


The world doesn't work that way, it can't. Being offended by something is so personal that you can't possible curate against it. Thus my point of using the Anita Sarkesian quote above. You can find anything and everything offensive if you want too, that doesn't mean that creative work, or public policy should change to cater to you.
That was a really bizarre rebuttal to my point and I think you instead responded to the argument you wanted me to make.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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That is a meaningless statement. It has nothing to do with "how they've always done it". This is an issue of subjective opinions towards a creative work. If you find Nazi's offensive then do you have a reasonable claim to have every WW2 featuring Nazi's removed? If you hate the use of the N-word, should they remake Django Unchained just to fit your personal tastes?


The world doesn't work that way, it can't. Being offended by something is so personal that you can't possible curate against it. Thus my point of using the Anita Sarkesian quote above. You can find anything and everything offensive if you want too, that doesn't mean that creative work, or public policy should change to cater to you.
...so, wait. What's the point of using Anita Sarkeesian's quote about how annoying and overbearing she was in college? You know she was sharing a self-depreciating anecdote, right?

What's the point of criticism if it's just demanding things be changed?

Why do *you* criticize video games?

And if one of our freedoms is to say whatever we want, why's it bad to say that sentient races *always* being a certain alignment is bullshit lazy writing?
That's the beauty of D&D thought isn't it. If you don't like a story element or aspect of what's presented, then you have the freedom to change it. It's just that the offense or cringe towards any particular part is so subjective, that I don't feel it warrants a change and mass reprinting of books to reflect someone's minor grievance.

I've yet to see any specific example that is blatantly racist or otherwise offensive. Maybe I just missed it, but I've not seen any of it in my D&D circles or on the net myself. So if you have a specific example, send me a link and I'd be willing to look it over.
They're doing the equivalent of adding errata to newer printing of rulebooks. Maybe.
It's not that deep.

This is a fantasy game, and orcs and dark elves are just the atypical bad guys so the game gives them the baseline foundations to be that. There are play groups in which the players are the evil force in the world. That's why they made "evil" races playable. Again it's just basic lore to give people jumping off points.
Okay, so if a Lawful Good Paladin spikes an orc newborn like a football, do they lose their special Good Guy powers?
I don't think anyone who plays D&D, or is familiar with the game from something like Critical Role, has ever looked at it and thought it was racist or satanic. These types of claims always come from groups from the outside looking in.

Shouldn't context mean something? Intention? Even if the Orcs are written in a way that you could stretch it out to equal a real life allegory, do people really think Wizards wrote it to be diliberately racist? Especially since that company is shown how quick they are to as inclusive as possible to special communities.

And more to your original point here, yes the original D&D lore wasn't written well and things have certainly changed and evolved over the years. However the writing of this lore can only get to a certain point, because once you over detail it you remove player agency for using that lore as a backbone to make it their own. That's kind of the point of it, be generic inspiration so that dungeon masters can craft it to fit whatever style of game they are playing.

It's getting out of hand honestly.

As Anita Sarkesian said, "Everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic...." And she has taught a whole movement of people that, yeah, if you want to you can find an offense in anything and everything. These people have found ways to gain fame, headlines, and also destroy careers, products, and hobbies, of people and things they don't like.

I don't believe any company, or person, should bow the knee to these groups because they are their own hate group. A hate group that gets results because they appear to have some moral high ground, which frankly there is nothing moral about it.

We have freedoms in the modern world, and one of those is the right to say anything you want. Even if it's ugly. If DnD books wrote Orcs as a direct corrilation to a real life race of people, then that's the right of the company. And if you don't agree or think it is poor taste, you can not support it. The same goes for video games and movies and whatever else.

Remember the outrage when a cake shop refused to make a cake for a gay wedding? The store got news coverage and the media portrayed them as evil bigots, when it was just a couple of people who didn't agree with gay marriage because of their religion. They have a right to refuse service to people, all businesses do. But that gay couple got media attention for causing outrage and another cake shop offered to make their wedding cake for fucking free. Hmmmm.......now doesn't that make you think a little? Wedding cakes are expensive. This cake shop doesn't want to make a cake because we're gay, let's report them for sympathy points and maybe we can profit on the outrage. Ding free cake. That saves like $500 from the wedding cost.

Ultimately that's the question I ask myself when it comes to this stuff. Are they getting something out of being outraged? Or are they just trying to flex some kind of influence over something that isn't a big deal?
...so...like...it was a common criticism from my old grognard game group who were so old twenty years ago that half of them are dead now, including the guy that thought Obama was a secret Kenyan Muslim Marxist.

This is not a new "SJW" thing. Ain't nobody is doing the equivalent of making a national scandal and running a case up to the Supreme Court for a $500 wedding cake. What the Wile E Coyote plan is that?
 
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TheMysteriousGX

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I've always argued the answer to that is "Yes, because an orc baby poses no threat to anyone and hasn't actually committed any evil acts, except possibly to it's diapers." You don't get to pre-judge the likelihood it will do wrong in the future and harm it based on that, that's part of the "Lawful" side of the whole "Lawful Good" thing. Regardless of if the orc baby is redeemable, until it's actually done wrong or at least supported the wrongdoing you can't wreak holy judgement upon it.
If the orc is *always* metaphysically Chaotic Evil (and both Chaotic and Evil are very much keywords that have power and magic behind them (Smite Evil would trigger in that newborn)) then you're doing the equivalent of killing a baby zombie. Except eventually more dangerous because it can think. Letting it live until it does sufficient wrong to justify capital punishment is only a matter of time and only results in at least one innocent person getting hurt.

So how is knowingly condemning a random person, or many people, to be severely injured or killed at a future date less evil than yeeting that Always Chaotic Evil baby over a cliff?

And this entire stupid argument is, by itself, more than enough justification for making this change on a macro level.
 

Hawki

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I don't think anyone has actually argued that the series is intentionally anti-semitic.
"Intent doesn't matter, impact does."

I don't know if there's any one person I can attribute this idea to, but I've seen it thrown around a lot. But that aside...

However, the characterisation of goblins builds on a lot of traditional anti-semitic caricatures.

Generally, if you're going to depict a secretive cabal of greedy bankers who control the economy and only trust their own kind, you're probably referencing (consciously or otherwise) traditional anti-semitic ideas about Jews. That's why, if you need to do this for some reason, don't give them hooked noses.
A lot of this is stretching things.

Quick, I say "goblin," and what are some traits that come to mind? Love of gold, and hooked noses. This isn't something that's limited to Harry Potter, this is a common goblin trope, period. Also, there's no evidence that the goblins actually run the economy, but semantics.

What I want to know is who the heck read Harry Potter, came across the goblins, and thought, "Jews!" I mean, obviously they exist, but seriously?

Again, I don't think anyone has actually argued that the series actually promotes chattel slavery. However, it does depict a world in which slavery is, for the most part, a benevolent and functional institution, where the only issues stem from rare and individual incidents of mistreatment, where the enslaved races are fiercely loyal and naturally suited to slavery and where abolitionism is viewed as naive and silly.

Firstly, that's a bit weird. Secondly, it clearly draws (knowingly or otherwise) upon actual, real life anti-abolitionist arguments.
That's really only half the story.

The house elf 'thing' comes in two stages. In Book 4, Hermione founds SPEW, and the plotline doesn't really go anywhere. Like, there isn't some house elf rebellion. In Book 5 though, it's touched on again, via Dumbledore's "the statue told a lie" comments. We know later on that Hermione does try to ensure house elf welfare when she becomes minister of magic.

Point being with the house elves, it looks at it from both perspectives. On the one hand, she's ignorant, because she's imposing her own views on a different species that has different goals and desires. On the other, the (potential) abuse of the house elves is acknowledged, and that goes beyond Dobby and Winky. But the idea of house elves being in a state of 'benevolent slavery' really doesn't seem to hold up. This isn't the first time in the series where Hermione's established to have a trait of being narrow minded, for better or worse.

Secondly, the series doesn't really reject the concept of blood purity. It depicts a world where the capacity for magic is hereditary, where magical bloodlines exist and where marriage between wizards is very clearly the traditional norm. Everyone within this setting is aware of these facts. What is rejected within the books is overt mistreatment of others on the basis of blood purity.
Magic's hereditary, but you either have magic or you don't. There's no shades of ability linked to 'blood purity.' If there was, Malfoy, for instance, should be among the most powerful of students, and Voldemort shouldn't be nearly as powerful as he is. Also, the whole marriage thing? It's outright stated more than once that there's very few pure-blood families left in the Wizarding World.

The issue is less the number of POC characters, and more the fact that the POC characters who do exist tend to be irrelevant and often represent obnoxious or reductive stereotypes. Cho Chang, for example, beyond having a name which sounds like a racist joke about Chinese names, is a character whose only function in the story is to date people, be a love interest and be a weak character so that the real love interest appears stronger by comparison. POC characters are generally treated like scenery, rather than being fully fleshed out characters.
TBH, I can't think of a single ethnic stereotype within the series. National stereotype, sure, but ethnic? No.

For one thing, I don't think the books spend that much time actually describing character ethnicity. I remember when the films came out, and many characters were cast in a way I didn't imagine them to be. Obviously stereotypes/archtypes exist, but the racial side? Not so much. And if we're talking about Cho Chang specifically, what in her character is stereotypical? That she's in Ravenclaw and East Asians tend to excel in academia?

Also, I disagree that's Cho's function, and even if it was, did it even work? HarryxGinny isn't that popular from what I can tell. Certainly ChoxHarry is my preferred pairing, but I've never been into shipping that much, at least in this particular setting.

People always knew it was about AIDS. It's not exactly subtle.

The problem is that we have two prominent werewolf characters. One is a sympathetic heterosexual who is unfairly persecuted, and the other is a monster who preys on children and tries to infect them and turn them against their parents.

You cannot claim to be exploring the issue of HIV prejudice while also having a character who represents the absolute worst excesses of HIV prejudice and anti-gay hysteria.
People always knew it was about AIDS...since when? Certainly not when the books came out. I don't recall when I stumbled across the idea, but it flagergasted me that people thought it was a metaphor for AIDS. Yes, Rowling came out later and said it was (in 2016), over a decade since lycanthropy was introduced to the series. But people criticized lycanthropy when it wasn't a metaphor for AIDS, and now people are criticizing it when it IS a metaphor for AIDS. Here's me wondering how many of these people actually understand that lycanthropy as a fictional concept pre-dates AIDS by quite awhile.

Also, beyond Dumbledore's retroactive gayness, reading him as gay is not hugely flattering. He's an eccentric old man whose only experience of romantic love was a tragic infatuation with a heterosexual who didn't return his affections. If Dumbledore was gay, then he never found a satisfying or loving relationship, or a community which accepted him for who he was, and he died lonely and celibate. The troubling implication of Rowling declaring that she always imagined Dumbledore as gay is that it suggests she views gay lives as inherently tragic and lonely.
I thought Grindlewald was established to return Dumbledore's affections. Certainly Crimes of Grindlewald indicates it.

As for Dumbledore being gay, again, I think this is a case of Rowling digging a hole for herself. On the other hand...well, that interpretation isn't without a foundation to stand on, but dying lonely and celibate isn't limited to Dumbledore in the series. Take Snape for example.

Some of these do seem pretty made up, or at least distorted far beyond the intent of the original point being made.
I can easily make up points of criticism for HP, but every one of those points I listed was a point that I've seen someone bring up. It's technically possible that they were made up points, but I really can't be sure. Not in this day and age. FFS, this very site had an article saying that Gears 5 was a "celebration of genocide." It was the article that got me to sign up for a Disqus account because I couldn't believe that anyone could come to that conclusion. The same principle applies to all media. Yeah, no media is free from critique, but some of the critiques are just bizzare. But I don't doubt that people actually believe them in most cases.
 

Hawki

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We have freedoms in the modern world, and one of those is the right to say anything you want. Even if it's ugly. If DnD books wrote Orcs as a direct corrilation to a real life race of people, then that's the right of the company. And if you don't agree or think it is poor taste, you can not support it. The same goes for video games and movies and whatever else.
Okay, most of your stuff I agree with, but this...not so much.

If Wizards wrote orcs explicitly to be racist, then that's something that I'd have no trouble criticizing. Yeah, it's their right, that doesn't mean we have to abide by it.

I admit that I'm the last person to discuss this, because I don't know DnD lore, but there's times when the intent is clear cut.

Remember the outrage when a cake shop refused to make a cake for a gay wedding? The store got news coverage and the media portrayed them as evil bigots, when it was just a couple of people who didn't agree with gay marriage because of their religion. They have a right to refuse service to people, all businesses do. But that gay couple got media attention for causing outrage and another cake shop offered to make their wedding cake for fucking free. Hmmmm.......now doesn't that make you think a little? Wedding cakes are expensive. This cake shop doesn't want to make a cake because we're gay, let's report them for sympathy points and maybe we can profit on the outrage. Ding free cake. That saves like $500 from the wedding cost.
Aren't there laws that state you can't refuse service based on irrefutable characcteristics? TBH, I think the couple were in the right, legally speaking. Try shifting that to refusing service based on gender, or ethnicity, or nationality, or anything else. But, what, we give these people a pass because they're homophobic?

"This is the way we've always done it," is a shitty reason to do anything.
"Change something to suit my tastes, damn context" is just as shitty.
 

Thaluikhain

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I've yet to see any specific example that is blatantly racist or otherwise offensive.
IIRC, they used to have some pretty bad pygmy and gypsy stuff, but they dropped it.

If Wizards wrote orcs explicitly to be racist, then that's something that I'd have no trouble criticizing.
They did. Sometimes, but they also sometimes did not, depending on the writer and if they were speaking to the other writers.

For example, at one point the orcs were described as being the same as everyone else, only they were being unfairly persecuted by zealots calling themselves the CCC. So, orcs are clearly black people, according to that writer. At the same time, other writers were portraying orcs as inherently evil.

Similarly, normally the Dark Elves are weird inhuman things with giant breasts. Sometimes they are dark skinned humans with pointy ears, depending on the artist.
 

Hawki

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They did. Sometimes, but they also sometimes did not, depending on the writer and if they were speaking to the other writers.

For example, at one point the orcs were described as being the same as everyone else, only they were being unfairly persecuted by zealots calling themselves the CCC. So, orcs are clearly black people, according to that writer. At the same time, other writers were portraying orcs as inherently evil.

Similarly, normally the Dark Elves are weird inhuman things with giant breasts. Sometimes they are dark skinned humans with pointy ears, depending on the artist.
All of that sounds like failures of worldbuilding rather than authoratorial intent.

Like, if the writers were collaborating, to portray orcs as African-American stand-ins, only with the persecution of the CCC being justified, then yeah, that's racist AF. Question is, were they communicating, or were they giving their own takes in isolation?
 

TheMysteriousGX

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All of that sounds like failures of worldbuilding rather than authoratorial intent.

Like, if the writers were collaborating, to portray orcs as African-American stand-ins, only with the persecution of the CCC being justified, then yeah, that's racist AF. Question is, were they communicating, or were they giving their own takes in isolation?
It's work-for-hire on a branded corporate product, approved by the suits in charge. They don't have the leeway that freelance third-party stuff does
 

Thaluikhain

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Question is, were they communicating, or were they giving their own takes in isolation?
Traditionally there's a lot of impressive failure to communicate between people working on D&D, including those working on the same projects.

Generally, I'd say there's little or no intent to be racist going on in D&D (that I've seen), but there's a lot of stuff that could have been handled a lot better, and if the community points it out maybe it well be next time.

Oh, I see I've misread your previous comment, missed the "to be" in "explicitly to be racist".
 

CriticalGaming

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If Wizards wrote orcs explicitly to be racist, then that's something that I'd have no trouble criticizing. Yeah, it's their right, that doesn't mean we have to abide by it.
The problem is, you have to guess on whether it was intended to be racist in the first place. Which I highly doubt. It's just generic this race is evil lore and that's it. Anyone taking it as a direct racist jab at specific people is projecting.

So if you assume intend, who's fault is it? Because again, it's a subjective thing. If you are looking to find things as racist then you'll find that anywhere, but does anyone think there is intentional malice in any of the D&D lore?
 

Hawki

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The problem is, you have to guess on whether it was intended to be racist in the first place. Which I highly doubt. It's just generic this race is evil lore and that's it. Anyone taking it as a direct racist jab at specific people is projecting.

So if you assume intend, who's fault is it? Because again, it's a subjective thing. If you are looking to find things as racist then you'll find that anywhere, but does anyone think there is intentional malice in any of the D&D lore?
There isn't much stuff that's written to be explicitly "something" these days, and when there is, it's usually against targets that are considered acceptable. But that aside, it's possible to write something offensive without knowing it.

Of course, people are going to have different ideas as to what's offensive and what isn't. There's the idea that the arbiter of this is the group that the source is directed at. For instance, the goblins in HP - if an actual Jew said they found it offensive, that would arguably carry more weight than someone who wasn't. But even then, there's plenty of examples where the 'target group' isn't offended, but people outside the group are.

Generally, all I can say is that no work is above criticism, but no criticism is above scrutiny.
 

Saint of M

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Part of this might be lazy writing which we all are guilty of. Just using old Warhammer editions here.

Elves from their weapons and their monsters, and their formations and city states borrow heavily from Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and even Celt (cauldron of blood), when it comes to the high elves and the dark elves. Wood Elves are essentially clones of Legolas and Treebeard, as it usually is, with some celt, some druid, and some Midsummer Night's Dream mixed in.

The Empire is Renaissance Germany with some steampunk.

Dwarves are a mix of Norwegians and Scots. Also some steampunk

Orcs and Goblins are a mix of Scots and football hooligans/Eagle american Football fans.

Lizardmen are Aztec dinosaur people with names that are anagrams for dinobots.

Beastmen have alot of Greek monsters but the German tribes that fought the Romans.

Warriors of Chaos are a mix of Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer, various barbarians but mostly Vkings, Mongoles, and Huns and the like, and a heavy metal album cover.

Vampire Counts are Transylvania

and so on.

While using them as a base is fine, few go beyond that and so go with the most shallow, surface level traits. However you go past this, add different to it.

I also have to wonder if dealing with the racism that was just copied and pasted into it by osmosis of copying and pasting other stuff from olden times we accidentally do something else that's just as prejudicial or moving on to another group that is still ok to mock until otherwise.

Once upon a time Ace Ventura Pet Detective was comedy gold but now is seen as needlessly transphobic.

As been going around on Facebook, a fan made modual has gone around that instead of race has more bloodline and heritage to show the difference usually associated with different races like elvin longevity or dwarven skills and expertness with stone. Unfortunately, I can still see a problem as this very thing is what either lead to real world racism and the perceived skin deep cultural artifacts from it, or classism with blood bloods vs commoners

I think one way is something 5e has already done that could help is to have how they view other races. Ranging from seeing humans as the captain Kirk Race (so many females of different species, so little time) or the pissing contest between dwarves and elves.
 

Schadrach

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Aren't there laws that state you can't refuse service based on irrefutable characcteristics? TBH, I think the couple were in the right, legally speaking. Try shifting that to refusing service based on gender, or ethnicity, or nationality, or anything else. But, what, we give these people a pass because they're homophobic?
Were they refusing to make a custom designed commissioned cake because the people ordering it were gay, or because they don't approve of gay weddings on religious grounds and thus refuse to create one to celebrate such an event? And yes, there is potentially a distinction there - for example would they have refused to create a birthday cake for that gay couple? A gay wedding planner ordering a cake for a straight wedding? Would they have refused to create a gay wedding cake if the person ordering it were a straight person (say, a sibling or parent of one of the couple)?

That might seem like a distinction without a difference, but the difference is essential - is it about refusing a person based on their immutable characteristics or is it about refusing to create commissioned works to celebrate certain kinds of events?

If the latter, what kinds of events are specially protected (or is the bakery no longer permitted to discriminate with respect to event celebrated at all?), and to take it further do the immutable characteristics of the person ordering it change that? For example, could they refuse to make a custom cake for a Asatru wedding? What about for a bris? What about for any other event I can conceive of to celebrate? Do those answers change depending on the race/gender/orientation/etc of the individual doing the order?

What I want to know is who the heck read Harry Potter, came across the goblins, and thought, "Jews!" I mean, obviously they exist, but seriously?
Love of gold, and hooked noses.
That, right there. That's a classic anti-Semitic stereotype.

Hell, there are people who argue the Ferengi from Star Trek are anti-Semitic just because they're greedy, often enough that there's a section on the Wikipedia article about Ferengi to discuss the idea.

The problem is, you have to guess on whether it was intended to be racist in the first place.
That's why you invoke "death of the author" and declare that anything that can theoretically be read in a racist fashion is racist.